Sunday Outings.

Now. I will expand on the many activities in my life.

Every Sunday after church, we go out to eat in a neighboring town. The only restaurant that is open on Sunday in Owensville is the Chinese restaurant, and we only eat there as a last resort (not that it is really that bad, but I'm not usually in the mood for cheap, over-fried food.) Thus, our options lie outside town, and more specifically, in Rosebud, Rolla or, on our particularly adventurous Sunday afternoons, Jefferson City.
Our most frequent choice is Kline's for many reasons:
1. It is only 5 minutes away
2. We always see people we know there
3. We already know what we're going to order before we even walk through the door
4. We like the waitress. She is really spunky and already knows what we're going to order
5. The food is good

Occasionally we will venture the hour drive to Rolla to eat at Zino's. Usually this outing is saved for special occasions because of the drive, but Papa sure loves the Sunday prime rib special they have. I never know what to get here because I don't really like meat, especially when it is still bleeding. Usually I end up with the some sort of pasta, which Papa frowns upon because it is usually not a special. If you have ever met my grandpa, you'll know he has interesting perceptions and ideas about food.
For one, he frowns upon people who don't order "the special" at restaurants because he says it isn't going to be as good. Every time my little brother goes out to eat with us, he orders chicken strips and every time Papa tries to convince him to get the fried chicken special and every time my brother still gets the chicken strips.
Papa also has this little saying that he brings up at every meal; he always asks us: "Do you eat to live or live to eat?" The best part of this common conversation is Papa's confusion about which he follows. He claims that he "eats to live," but sometimes he'll say that he "lives to eat" at which point Grammy and I will laugh and remind him that at the last meal he "ate to live."
Papa also buys food based on price. If something costs more, then it has to be better. When we are eating something particularly expensive, he always tells me that I should really like it because it cost a lot.
Ok, back to lunch at Zino's. Once we're finished, we always go to Lowe's, so we can check things out. Sometimes I sit in the car and read because Lowe's is one of my least favorite places to be. I don't know why, but I always get really angry when I have to go to Lowe's. It must be something about the immense concrete floors and shelves 12 times my size. After Lowe's, we go to the Rolla Recycling Center. This, for Grammy, is the highlight of the trip. The center is divided into different sections for the different plastics and glasses, so we divide and conquer. Grammy and Papa divide the plastics amongst the many sections and I take the glass. The glass is the most exciting thing to recycle (not that everything else about recycling isn't exciting) because you get to throw the glass into its section and watch it shatter. Plus, the excitement is exemplified by 1,000,000 because since Rolla is a college town, the glass section is already filled with empty beer bottles, so your one glass mayonnaise jar can create a domino effect, sending beer bottles into the air to shatter once more.

Lunch in Jefferson City seems least exciting, but it means I get to see my parents and my little brother. Either my parents cook a massive feast or we go eat at Red Lobster. We love those cheesy biscuits.